Daily almanac

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2014. There are 308 days left in the year.

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2014. There are 308 days left in the year.

Highlights in history

• In 1904, the United States and Panama proclaimed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to undertake efforts to build a ship canal across the Panama isthmus.

• In 1929, President Calvin Coolidge signed a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

• In 1952, Prime Minister Winston Churchill (right) announced that Britain had developed an atomic bomb.

• In 1970, National Public Radio was incorporated.

• In 1987, the Tower Commission, which had probed the Iran-contra affair, issued its report, which rebuked President Ronald Reagan for failing to control his national-security staff.

• In 1993, a truck bomb built by terrorists exploded in the parking garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

• In 1994, a jury in San Antonio acquitted 11 followers of David Koresh of murder, rejecting claims that they had ambushed federal agents; five were convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

• In 2012, in a case that drew national attention, Trayvon Martin, 17, was fatally shot in Sanford, Fla., during an altercation with neighborhood-watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who said he had acted in self-defense. Zimmerman subsequently was acquitted of second-degree murder.

• Five years ago: The Pentagon, reversing an 18-year-old policy, said it would allow some media coverage of returning war dead, with family approval.

• One year ago: A hot-air balloon burst into flames during a sunrise flight over the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor and plummeted 1,000 feet to earth, killing 19 tourists. One tourist and the balloon’s pilot survived.

Thought for today

“One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.” — Victor Hugo (1802-1885)